3 ms·

Interesting paper, but they're very open about their limitations of just running this on Finnish data. From the conclusion: We plan to extend our current anal

Interesting paper, but they're very open about their limitations of just running this on Finnish data. From the conclusion: We plan to extend our current analysis in several directions. A first extension is to replicate our analysis for other countries There are many things unique to Finland, which makes this hard to generalize. Also - they mention the interaction between father's income and child's IQ as a misallocation of resources. Is the implication that the parent is misallocating resources, or that Finnish society is misallocating resources by not funding the potential innovators who don't have wealthy dads?

fuzzfactor 9y ago
Looks to me like the authors are lamenting the lack of society's resources devoted to enabling the pursuit of innovation for those intellectually capable whose personal resources fall below the level needed for unbroken progress toward achievement of patents. And that's a very high level now arrived at seemingly decently with the data they had to work with. The paper is fascinating but to me it just confirms what should have been obvious to any natural innovator since childhood. Once I found out about Edison (and patents) I didn't see much purpose in patents until after I would happen to have solid support for my efforts to begin with. Employers and others have made millions due to my innovations, but that was not truly solid support as long as I am still tasked with diverting so much of my time and effort to survival activites. If I had patented some of my most promising inventions they would have expired by now anyway, as it is I can maintain readiness indefinitely. It takes a great individual to overcome the kind of adversity that Edison did, and somebody like that does not come along every day, so I am with WalterBright on this one.

3 ms·

Interesting paper, but they're very open about their limitations of just running this on Finnish data. From the conclusion: We plan to extend our current anal

by mathattack 9y ago

fuzzfactor 9y ago
Looks to me like the authors are lamenting the lack of society's resources devoted to enabling the pursuit of innovation for those intellectually capable whose personal resources fall below the level needed for unbroken progress toward achievement of patents. And that's a very high level now arrived at seemingly decently with the data they had to work with. The paper is fascinating but to me it just confirms what should have been obvious to any natural innovator since childhood. Once I found out about Edison (and patents) I didn't see much purpose in patents until after I would happen to have solid support for my efforts to begin with. Employers and others have made millions due to my innovations, but that was not truly solid support as long as I am still tasked with diverting so much of my time and effort to survival activites. If I had patented some of my most promising inventions they would have expired by now anyway, as it is I can maintain readiness indefinitely. It takes a great individual to overcome the kind of adversity that Edison did, and somebody like that does not come along every day, so I am with WalterBright on this one.